


High Road

by Trash



Category: Fort Minor - Fandom, Linkin Park, Styles of Beyond
Genre: Homophobia, Homophobic Language, M/M, Substance Abuse, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-12
Updated: 2015-11-12
Packaged: 2018-05-01 07:34:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5197601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trash/pseuds/Trash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mike's image changes as Fort Minor takes off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	High Road

**Author's Note:**

> You people are running off at the mouth  
> Trying to make me take myself off safety  
> Trying to make my friends turn their backs on the team we built  
> building up some mistaken information  
> and I can't take this.

Tak calls and asks him to come to the label offices. It's nothing urgent, he says, just get here whenever he can. Mike has just woken up and feels like something crawled into his mouth and died over night. He never was good at nursing a hangover, that was always Chester's territory. He swings his feet out of bed and the sudden movement causes his head to spin. He cradles it in his hands and groans. It's a good job they don't need him to rush. 

When he manages to drag himself to the studio an hour later (on foot, because he doesn't think for one second that he has sobered up enough over night to drive) and steps into the board room he is surprised to see all of Styles Of Beyond sat around the table with Melanine Birkett, the Head of Marketing. 

"Sorry I'm late," he begins. 

Melanie holds up a hand and smiles. She has lipstick on her teeth. "It's okay. You're a hip hop star now, right? Take a seat."

Mike sits down beside Ryu. He can smell beer but he isn't sure anymore who it is coming from. His stomach churns and he reaches for a glass, pouring water from the glass jug in the middle of the table. 

"Heavy night?" Melanie asks. 

Tak laughs, "Heavy as fuck. Mike here got kicked out of the club because he couldn't stand up anymore."

"Not my finest moment," Mike mumbles, smiling sheepishly at Melanie. None of that was his doing, and he's pretty sure that the SOB boys slipped something stronger than vodka into his drinks. It was supposed to be a wind down after a day in the studio, not a bender. 

"Don't worry about it. In fact, embrace it. You could do with cutting loose a bit more, Mike." Melanie looks around the others who all nod at her before turning to him. 

"I...okay. I guess? Just...the deadlines and...I can't work hungover, you know?"

"You'll soon get used to it," Ryu smirks, slapping a hand down on his shoulder. Tak reaches across the table to high five Ryu and they both laughs. 

Mike doubts it. He's had hangovers that left him incapacitated in his time. Mostly under the influence of Chester, who made being drunk sound like a fairy tale that nobody understood the same way as him. Mike tries not to make it a habit of getting too inebriated around him since he always finds himself compelled to kiss him, and Chester loses the ability to say no.

"We're here to discuss the best way to sell the album," says Melanie. When she smiles Mike thinks of snakes eating their young. 

"Right. I had some ideas about special packages, with the CD and a t-shirt. Maybe reduced price Militia membership thrown in, too?"

Melanie nods. "Yeah, that sounds great," she says dismissively, "but I wanted to talk about how we are going to market Fort Minor as a group."

"Right..."

"Linkin Park fans will love it because they love you. But if you want to get past that you need to appeal to a different audience."

Mike's head feels like a car crash. He closes his eyes tightly, takes a deep breath in through his nose and out through his mouth. "Could you just spell it out for me here? I'm not following."

"You need to fit in better with the other guys. Particularly Styles of Beyond," Melanie nods at Ryu and Tak, "seeing as you're going to appear together the most. At the moment you look like, well..."

"You look like a business man at a Fifty Cent show," says Tak with a smirk. 

"Oh. Right. Um. I don't really know what..."

Ryu rolls his eyes, "Mike, nobody is going to buy your act if you're just acting. You need to stop doing hip hop and become it. Come to more meetings drunk, smoke some pot, dress the part. If you're gonna talk the talk you need to walk the walk, right?"

Tak nods, "Right."

Melanie smiles. "Finance have agreed to stretch the budget to include an allowance for clothes."

Mike looks down at his t-shirt and frowns, "What's wrong with my clothes?"

"Just trust us on this one, okay?" Ryu says. 

So Mike does. 

***

The mix tape is coming together, at last. Mike spent a lot of time giving himself stress ulcers as deadlines came and went without being met. It didn't bother any of the others, though, so he tried to let it go. Chester keeps asking to hear it but Mike won't let him. 

"Why not?"

"I'm not ready for you to hear it yet," he says, embarrassed. 

"You've never had any problems with letting me hear demos before," Chester mumbles, moodily. They're on the beach, a rare day off for Mike. He couldn't imagine wanting to spend his down time with anybody else, but since his meeting with Melanie and SOB he has been on a short leash. 

"I want it to be the best it can before you hear it. Okay?"

Chester nods, looking at him. His expression is unreadable behind his sunglasses. "Okay," he says. He reaches out and pats Mike's hand, a gesture that has never made Mike uncomfortable until now. As discreetly as possible he pulls his hand away and scratches his opposite arm, looking away. 

"Wanna go get a beer?" Chester asks. 

Mike does. Hopefully it'll make everything easier to deal with. The bar they pick over looks the beach and, as the day turns to night, people file off the sand and into the bar. Chester returns to their table with two shots to go with the beers they already have on the table. The liquid in the shot glasses is bright green. Mike thinks of kryptonite. 

Chester raises his to his lips and downs it in a second, slamming the empty glass on the table and grimacing. "Fuck!" His lips shine, and Mike has to look away. 

He throws back his own shot. It tastes vaguely of apples but mostly of vodka. He washes it down with his beer, wincing. "That was...grim," he says, but it has gone straight to his head and the buzz is pleasant. 

"I have something I want to say to you," Chester says, picking the label off his now empty beer bottle.

"Shoot."

"Okay. But first. What would make you hate me?"

Mike frowns, tries to focus on Chester's face. "Nothing. Though your beige suit makes me angry."

"I'm being serious," Chester laughs. 

"Me too. That thing is ugly as shit."

"Mike."

Mike can't imagine ever being more than mildly pissed off at Chester. They've had their fair share of fights in the past but things are usually resolved before the sun goes down. He shrugs, "Nothing. I could never hate you."

Chester nods, considering it. "Okay. So nothing could ever really change our friendship, right?"

"Right. Where are you going with this? Have you killed someone? I'd help you hide the body, man, that's how much you mean to me."

Chester smiles faintly and looks down at his beer for a full minute before looking up at Mike again. "I'm gay," he says. 

Mike feels the shot rising at the back of his throat and he swallows hard. He knew, really. He has always known. But hearing it changes things. He isn't sure what things, really, or why. But he knows things can't be the same now. 

*** 

Mike isn't there when Chester tells the rest of Linkin Park and makes it public but he gets a call off Ryu soon enough. He wants to know if Mike has heard. 

"Heard what?"

"About your boy, Chester."

"What? Has something happened?"

"He's finally admitted to being a faggot is all," Ryu says, laughing, "wanna keep your back to the wall there, Shinoda."

Mike feels physically sick. This is what he had been afraid of. Even in the heat of the biggest fight Mike has never used the word 'faggot'. Not ever. And now, hearing it said so calmly, stated as fact. He doesn't know what to say so he laughs anxiously, and throws up the second he gets off the phone. 

***

Chester wants to hear the mix tape. Brad has heard it, why hasn't he? Is there something wrong? He wants to know now, so they can sort it out. 

"No, Chester, there's nothing wrong."

"Okay," Chester nods. They're sitting opposite each other at a coffee house not far from the studio. When the others asked where he was going he said he was meeting his mom. Just one of so many lies that roll easily from his lips these days. Chester looks terrible. He sips his frappuccino and stares out of the window. "I just want to make sure," he says, "because I can't lose another person I love because of this."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Mike frowns. 

Chester sighs tiredly, "It means I can't face the idea of losing you because I finally decided to stop pretending to be someone I'm not. People won't return my calls, they bad mouth me on the Internet."

"I'm not going to do that," Mike says. But when Chester reaches out for his hand Mike pulls away. 

***

Mike blows Chester off the next day to go clothes shopping with Ryu and Tak. He feels guilty for most of the day until they hit the bar for a beer with lunch. One beer turns into six and they stagger, laughing and drunk, into store after store looking at pants and T-shirts that hang off Mike awkwardly. 

Ryu holds up one that says "I love loose lips" and hands it to Mike who hitches his baggy jeans higher up on his waist. 

"Is this all really necessary?"

"Shut the fuck up," Tak laughs, handing it to the cashier. The bill totals over a thousand dollars, and none of the clothes fit or suit him. But that doesn't seem to matter to Tak or Ryu. 

They stand behind him in his bedroom as he looks in the mirror at his new style. "I used to dress this way when I was twenty," Mike says, "and it doesn't work for me now."

"You look the part," Tak says. 

"You just need to start acting the part," Ryu tells him. 

"How?"

"Smoke more weed." Tak pulls out a baggy of green and hands it to him over his shoulder. 

"Drink more beer. Get charged with DUI. Whatever. Just...make us believe it." 

Mike starts by following them to a 7-11 to buy as much beer as they can carry back to the studio. They show him how to punch a hole in the bottom of a can and suck the alcohol out.

"Roll me a joint," Ryu demands. 

Mike does, but he's so drunk his fingers won't do what he tells them and what he produces looks a little sad.

"Dude, weed isn't rationed you know," Ryu laughs, lighting up. 

"You can't smoke in here, they'll have a fit," Mike points out, pressing a beer can to his flushed face, relishing the cool tin against his skin. 

"Fuck that bullshit, they can blow me."

Ryu shows Mike how to roll a fat joint and watches him get so high he can't sing without the world getting dark as he hits notes at the top of his scale. He crashes into walls and he falls over and they're all laughing and laughing and laughing. 

***

Chester calls over and over but Mike doesn't pick up. It's not that he's ignoring the calls it's just that he's too wasted to notice his phone ringing. The one time he notices he picks it up, his vision swimming. 

"Mike?"

"Chester?"

Tak laughs, "Ask him if he has done the deed yet."

"Have you done the deed yet?" Mike asks.

"What deed?"

Tak makes a lewd gesture and laughs out loud for too long. Ryu says, "You know, a spot of uphill gardening."

Chester is quiet at the other end of the phone until he says, "Mike?"

"I'm sorry," Mike says, "I'm sorry." But it's drowned out by Ryu and Tak's shouting slurs and Chester hangs up. 

***

Chester doesn't call again, and doesn't answer when Mike does. He would visit him, if only he could get up from the bathroom floor. He is scared for the moment his hangover has subsided because he isn't sure how to deal with the self-loathing it is keeping at bay. 

After ten more calls to Chester, Mike calls Brad who answers straight away. 

"You've got a lot of explaining to do, Shinoda," he says, but he doesn't sound mad. 

"Is he okay? He won't...I don't expect him to speak to me, but I just want to know-"

"I'm in the hospital, Mike," Brad says, and his words may as well be gunshots straight to Mike's heart. "I think you better get here."

***

Suicide attempt, the doctors say. Hate crime, Brad says. He pulls Mike to one side before he even makes it to Chester's room.

"You put a stop to this," he says, long fingers digging into Mike's shoulder. "Not just the drinking and the drugs and whatever the fuck else, but the music. Get out of it."

"I. The. I'm contractually bound," Mike stammers. His mouth feels like it is full of cotton wool. 

Brad squeezes his shoulder hard, pinches a nerve. "Make it happen."

***

Mike can't make it happen.

He checks contracts and makes appointments with his lawyer as surreptitiously as possible, around hospital visits and studio time. He wears sunglasses more and more, which Tak and Ryu applaud.

"Looking good, Shinoda," Tak says, handing him a beer when he steps into the studio. 

Mike looks at it. He wants to say something, wants to tell them what has happened. But he doesn't want to bring Chester into the room, doesn't want them to know that they almost won.

He says nothing, instead. The smile he puts on is tight and doesn’t reach his eyes. Ryu throws an empty water bottle at him from across the room and Mike bats it away before it hits him in the face. “Quit it, faggot,” he says.

And Ryu laughs and laughs.


End file.
